Weekend Life

We try to enjoy this stage of our lives by really taking advantage of our freedom and flexibility. We won't always be able to pack up and take off on Thursday or Friday nights and be gone all weekend. We won't always be able to make last minute plans and change those plans at will.

Our families are important to us. Most of them live in the same small town four hours from here; our parents live less than a mile from each other. We have other important family and friends in Seattle, and another group of important family in Boise. All of these places are within four hours of driving. This does make seeing our families much easier, but also means that we are away from our home most weekends.

Not this weekend though. This weekend we stayed home and tried to get some housework done and get out into the community.  Ahhh :)

Saturday morning we made it to the Pasco Farmer's Market. We try to get out to either the Pasco or Richland markets to get some fresh produce for the week's menu.

This was it! It's usually WAY bigger, but I guess
it's still early in the season. We managed to find
some fruits and some beautiful chard.

We also tried a Hawaiian Smoothie.
This one is Hawaiian Lemonade:
strawberries, lemon and kiwi.

After the farmer's market, we still needed to get some more groceries for the week, so we went to the Country Mercantile. I love this store. During the summers it's full of fun produce and all sorts of local products and goodies.

We were looking for milk in glass bottles, but they didn't carry it. I also bought some other produce and cherries, which was a surprise this early in the season.

This is one type local product
that they sell. I'm not sure
 about this one though.
Canned Cobbler!? Hmm.

After the Country Mercantile, we finished up our grocery shopping with Albertson's and Costco. Not terribly exciting, except that we do love us a Costco trip. We also went to United Grocers. It's funny that we shop in bulk so much when there is just two of us. We like to get big packs of things and then use our Food Saver to break it down into smaller portions and freeze it. Like we'll buy a whole fillet of salmon and then cut it into servings and vacuum seal them. Blake's newest idea is to get a meat slicer and make our own lunch meat. I'm thinking that we aren't there yet ;). We don't use that much lunch meat. I think that we'll be pros if we decide to have a big family!

::

We had dinner after our grocery shopping (steaks, yams and broccoli, all grilled) and did some gardening.

We now have the following vegetables growing: Tomato (1), jalapenos (2), other hot peppers (2), bell peppers (5), cucumber (1), strawberries (2), lettuce/spring greens (4).

We also have the following herbs growing: Basil (4), dill (4), sage (1), rosemary (1 large), thyme (2), oregano (1), mint (1). I'm going to try growing my cucumber and future squash plants vertically!

My sage plant (top left) came back from last year, after nearly dying this winter. I've never seen it flower like this before.

After our dinner and gardening, we got an invite to come over to a friend's bbq. Since we'd already eaten, I decided to make a dessert to bring. I had just bought a ton of blueberries and it was a good reason to use them. I made Blueberry Pudding Cake, delicious. The recipe can be found here.

Not the best picture, but this
was the leftovers.

We had a great time visiting with friends. It feels like we never get to just go hang out at friends' houses, since we're never in town. Most of our friends here are originally friends of Blake's from college or new friends from church. We see our church friends every Tuesday during Bible study, but the two groups (Blake's friends and church friends) don't overlap (yet.. wouldn't that be great if they did one day).

Sunday came and brought a beautiful day for church out in their amphitheater. They do this only during the summer. Eventually it gets too hot and has to move to the early service, which we don't usually make it up for :).

At the top of the amphitheater.

I thought this might be a cool shot,
please don't interpret it as signs of boredom.
The study was great!

It happened to be communion Sunday.

The fountain, that also serves as the baptismal.

Took a few other shots while I had the camera out.

I love having my shoes off and my toes in the grass.

Our Sunday tradition is to get breakfast burritos from Roberto's Taco Shop after church. These things are so good! I'm sure my photos won't do it justice, but will make me recall the deliciousness that once was on my palate.

Egg, bacon, potato and cheese. Best served cut in half with
a side of 'green' sauce (which is actually brown).

Simple weekend, but thoroughly enjoyed. It's the sort of weekend that we'll think of as ordinary and boring a few years from now, when most of our weekends are this way. I'm sure that we'll wish for the last minute getaway weekends when we're in the stage of staying home with our family. The grass is always greener, isn't it.